ISLAMABAD, May 9: Gen (retd) Aslam Beg has passed the buck to Gen (retd) Asad Durrani.

A day ahead of hearing of the Asghar Khan case, former army chief Mirza Aslam Beg moved an application in the Supreme Court claiming that he had not been involved in any manner in the disbursement of donations among politicians in the 1990s under orders of then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan.

Gen Beg put the blame on then director general of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Asad Durrani who he said had the knowledge of the accounts.

A two-judge SC bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and Justice Tariq Parvez will resume on Thursday the hearing of the 1996 petition of Tehrik-i-Istiqlal chief Asghar Khan requesting it to look into allegations of ISI’s financing of politicians in the 1990 general election to limit the victory of Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party.

Gen Aslam Beg filed the application in response to an observation made by the Supreme Court in its April 25 order. The court had asked Advocate Akram Sheikh, the counsel for Gen Beg, to furnish details of accounts allegedly used to finance politicians during the 1990 election.

Gen Beg contended that he had been saying from the very outset of the case that he had absolutely no involvement in the disbursement of donations ordered by late Ghulam Ishaq Khan and that he merely possessed knowledge about the plan as he was the commander of the armed forces.

He also said he did not possess personal knowledge of the accounts or of the disbursement of money and he was neither privy to any details of the accounts nor was privy to any transactions. In fact there was no allegation against him for having distributed any money, he added. The accounts, the application said, had been maintained by the ISI and he only instructed ISI DG Gen (retd) Asad Durrani to maintain these accounts. No misappropriation was ever reported or came to his knowledge, Gen Beg said, adding that ISI was not under his command.

He also recalled that he had submitted in an elaborate manner in his concise statement that the amount was not placed in the army account, rather it was placed in the account of ISI and the relevant person having knowledge of the accounts would be Gen (retd) Asad Durrani being the ISI DG at that time or any other person he might have directed.